Life In Gotham City

It’s been a busy week in Gotham City! I’d almost forgotten the adrenaline rush of having to lock your doors at night in the city.

Our new residence certainly seems to attract all sorts.

Not only do we have noisy drunks and students weaving their way past our house late at night, but our gate seems to have become the hotspot for every private school social gathering of teens, drawing on their first ciggies and pashing behind the trees.

I have opened the front door twice at ridiculous times of the night (9pm) to disappointed party-goers, adamant that the party is at ours.

Being exposed to the wilder side of city living has certainly punctured a hole in the cocoon, created by our ‘safe’, previous life in the burbs.

Our crazy week started with the ongoing saga of THE DOG FROM HELL, who now officially has a ransom on his head and the status of ‘sworn enemy’ to the old man, (a status normally reserved for sportsmen who disappoint). I’m not talking about Princess Spoodle, of course, but the f*cker yapper next door, who might look normal enough, but who barks for hours on end if you dare to breathe in your own back yard.

For absolutely NO fucking reason at all.

It is the old man’s worst nightmare and was one of the main concerns he voiced when Nerd Child and I were coercing him into renting the terrace over some dull family house (yawn) he wanted in some boring neighbourhood-watch suburb, with the tasteful pink, floral wallpaper and Shaker kitchen.

Not content to terrorise us in our own courtyard, the yapper also starts straining his vocal chords from 6am every morning, until his dog walker collects him at 7 to exercise the rest of his body. I caught the old man yesterday, standing in our courtyard and repeatedly shaking his fist and mouthing the ‘c’ word up at the offender, who was barking at him from his balcony.

His owners are either profoundly deaf or simply don’t know how to resolve the issue. They are certainly ignorant of the rights of their new neighbours, particularly neighbours with Guardian Angel tendencies who are anal about noise and know the council’s number by heart after only three weeks. So as responsible neighbours, we have taken into consideration the effect of this noise pollution in the street and have devised the following suggestions for getting rid of this dog, humanely, and without it looking premeditated looking like it was us:

• Bribe the dogwalker into ‘losing’ the dog on the main road during a walk.
• Feed the dog with large quantities of chocolate which is a known toxin
• Remove the fencing on the dog’s balcony at night and then call ‘treat’ to the f*cker to get him to run outside in the morning.
• Shoot it.

Frazzled by lack of sleep, and the continuous ‘barking’ in our ears (even when the f*cker/yapper isn’t barking), Saturday night proved to be another busy night in Gotham.

Around 2am we were brutally awoken by the sound of the most horrendous car crash beneath our window. (Note to self: crashing cars travelling at only 30km per hour can do serious damage, which has reminded me of the perils of ignoring the 40km speed limit in school zones when trying to beat all the gym bunnies to the treadmills). The bang was followed by the terrified shrieks of someone running down the street shouting in a crazed voice ‘somebody help me!’

The old man and I both leapt out of bed, terrified, not knowing if we were experiencing a real ‘Independence Day’ (and the old man is no Will Smith) and imagining that Nerd Child (who had been out for the night) might be involved. (Luckily, she was still comatose in her bedroom after one too many Breezers).

I screamed to the old man to call the police (because I’m good at managing), which he did, and then he promptly ran out onto the street to assess his car the situation, whilst I tried to calm the ADHDer down who was hyper at the thought of a car crash IN HIS ROAD.

Apparently a taxi driver had careered into a parked car at full force when his passenger had tried to attack him to dodge his fare.

And did I mention that this all happened IN OUR STREET?

Luckily, he was unhurt, as the assailant scarpered once the car had crashed and he realised that he might be accountable for a little more than a mere $20 fare. Both cars were write-offs, and our little house of simple country folk was shaken.

Sleep was hard to come by afterwards but was disturbed again at 8am by the grieving wails of our neighbour who woke to find that she only had half a Honda with which to drive to church.

I hid in my bedroom waiting for some out of space invasion or incoming tsunami from the harbour.

It takes some getting used to, life in the city. This new mix of cultures, the sheer volume of people and the speed of the traffic are daunting to us ‘insulars’ from ‘up north’ whose biggest fear in our previous life was a visit from the Seventh Day Adventists.

I might not have found my ‘core’ (Can Yoga Help Me Find My Core?) but I’m determined to find some backbone.

Gotham City! courtesy of flickr.com